


when the shadow falls (you shine a light)

by ironarana



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Again, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, author projects onto fictional characters to cope, butchered metaphors?, just like me, this is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironarana/pseuds/ironarana
Summary: He feels hollow. Without form, color, motion. Just an empty vessel to be filled and emptied again.He hates it. But he doesn’t know how to fix it.Or, Peter is inexplicably upset and Tony is there to comfort him.
Relationships: Irondad & Spiderson - Relationship, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 99





	when the shadow falls (you shine a light)

It’s frustrating and stupid what his brain decides is worth wasting his tears on. 

For example, he has, well, _had_ weekend plans with Ned involving Star Wars movies, takeout and copious amounts of popcorn they could fling into the air and then catch in their mouths. It was supposed to be fun and lighthearted and Peter wasn’t supposed to watch their plans be torn to tatters and circle down the drain when Ned dropped a bomb on him at school earlier. 

“Sorry, Peter but some distant relatives are coming from out of state as a surprise and we hardly see them,” Ned said. “Is it okay if we reschedule? I’m open next weekend.” 

Peter forced a smile onto his face and hoped that the disappointment didn’t show, pretended that raw, palpable defeat wasn’t swallowing him whole from the inside out like a wormhole. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine don’t-don’t worry about it,” he stammered out, his throat thick, his voice slightly wet. 

Ned’s brow creased in concern and that made it worse. Ned couldn’t know. Ned shouldn’t feel guilty for canceling so he could see his family. 

“Really, you sure?” Ned asked, his eyes worried. 

Peter cleared his throat and nodded, his hands tightening on his backpack straps. “Yeah, it’s fine, I’m-I’m fine, really, Ned, it’s-it’s okay.” 

Ned’s mouth tilted hesitantly into a smile as he replied, “Okay. See you at lunch” and then he headed off to class before the bell rang. 

“Yeah, see you,” Peter replied belatedly and then went to first period and silently sulked, his mind blanking as emptiness permeating through his skull and a crushing weight settled onto his lungs. 

He didn’t even know why. He’d canceled plans before and he certainly fit the definition of “flake” according to MJ but it just felt different this time around. Ned almost never canceled and even if he had a good reason, Peter couldn’t help feeling like he did something wrong and like he was the bad guy. 

_Ned’s mad at you,_ the cloying voice in his head told him. _You screwed him over big time and now he’s mad at you and trying to get rid of you._

The problem was he couldn’t think of anything remotely bad he had said or done. The problem was it was his own stupid, screwed up brain that was telling him Ned was out to get him. And his body was reacting like it was true even though the logical, more rational side of him could easily poke holes in the argument and sniff out the fallacies in what his brain was telling him. 

So at lunch, he let Ned and MJ talk and didn’t say much and then at home he went to his room and cried and since then, he hasn’t moved. He’s just lying in his bed with the curtains open as darkness slowly begins to creep over the city like it always does in the winter time, leaving Peter to succumb to the tiredness that comes early now. Early like night does, early like misplaced self recrimination even if he did nothing wrong. 

May is at work and she’s working a long weekend so he is alone with no Ned and no aunt. Just him, his homework and a lonely apartment with overbearing, faded yellow walls and a cold, aching floors. 

He blinks slowly at his open closet, eyes glazed over and unfocused. He’s too deep inside his own head and he knows it and he hates it, hates how it feels to have his brain weighing heavily inside his skull, hates how trapped he feels in this mind and in this body, but he can’t escape himself, can’t escape his own head. He exists there. Take away the mind and there’s only a body. What’s a body without a mind? Just hollow men, like that TS Eliot story MJ is fond of and quotes frequently. 

_Shape without form, shade without color. Paralyzed force, gesture without motion._

He feels hollow. Without form, color, motion. Just an empty vessel to be filled and emptied again. 

He hates it. But he doesn’t know how to fix it. 

The sun sets and Peter’s phone vibrates on the mattress. It startles him out of himself and he checks the caller ID: Tony. 

If he’s in the business of being honest, he doesn’t want to talk to Tony because Tony will only try and cheer him up with bantering and jokes and he doesn’t want to feel better right now. He just wants to wallow in self pity and swim in the dark waters of misery. 

But he knows if he doesn’t answer now, Tony will find a way to get a hold of him eventually whether Peter likes it or not so he answers the phone and presses it to his ear, lets Tony talk first. 

_“Wow, five rings, must be a new record,”_ Tony cracks, just as Peter suspected. _“Normally, I don’t even get one ring one before you answer cause you literally jump at your phone whenever you call. By the way, May told me that. Slow reflexes today?”_

Peter sighs, long and spiraling and tired. “Yeah, something like that.” 

_“Hmm,”_ Tony says. Then, _“Okay, what’s up? Cut the crap. I can hear it in your voice something is up so don’t even try and spew some lie about how you’re fine. I literally invented that line and I can see right through it when you use it, so what gives?”_

“Mr. Stark, I’m not in the mood today, alright?” Peter snaps and a twinge of guilt pinches him somewhere between his ribcage. Somewhere sensitive and feeling and not hollow. “I’m really, really tired.” 

_“It’s only like five, you know that right? Is this your SAD acting up again?”_

It’s not that, although Peter will admit that’s probably playing a part in his misery, but the truth is much more stupid because no one else, let alone someone who is almost an adult, cries in their bed when their plans get canceled by their best friend in the whole world. Of course, he doesn’t want to tell Tony that so instead he just mumbles, “I don’t know. Maybe.” 

_“Hmm,”_ Tony says, which means he’s thinking, formulating, plotting. _“Is your aunt home?”_

“No, she’s gonna be at work almost all weekend,” Peter answers bluntly. 

_“Sweet, I’m coming over.”_

Peter blinks, shoots upwards in his bed in surprise. “What?” 

_“What, did you knock yourself in the head patrol? I’m coming over and I’m bringing snacks. You like those God awful red Twizzlers right? The ones that taste like rubber?”_

He shakes his head. “Mr. Stark, what are you-” 

_“Aaand Doritos, I know you like Doritos so I’m gonna grab those and I’ll see you in-wait, did you already eat dinner?”_

“No, I-I didn’t, Mr. Stark, you don’t have to-” 

_“Uh, oh, too late. Already in the car. See you in two hours, it’s gonna be dinner and a show.”_

Then the line clicks dead and Peter flops onto his bed, defeated, and maybe feeling a little like he wants to punch Tony, or himself, in the face. 

And sure enough, two hours later, Peter sees shadows and light shifting in his bedroom and looks out his window to find two headlights cutting through the night and a silver Audi parked and gleaming underneath a streetlamp against the curb. Tony has two bulging brown paper bags in each hand and Peter watches him cross the sidewalk and disappear into the apartment building. 

Peter doesn’t even bother to try and speed clean the house, although he would if this was any other person. But Tony has far surpassed the title of “house guest” and when he catches Peter in the act of straightening throw pillows or clearing away dirty dishes he always insists that it’s not the house he’s there to see. It’s a nice sentiment. 

So instead, Peter just changes from his school clothes and into pajama pants and a worn yet comfortable sweatshirt. By the time he yanks it over his head, Tony is knocking at the door so he heads to the front door and undoes the deadbolt, opens the door. 

Tony is wearing sunglasses despite it already being dark out and Peter is beginning to realize more and more that Tony wears them more for the fashionability rather than the practicality. 

He raises the brown paper bags he has in his hands and Peter catches a whiff of savory spices. 

“I brought Chinese,” Tony says and steps over the threshold, breezes past Peter and heads into the kitchen. 

Peter closes the door and locks it before trailing after Tony, who is already setting white styrofoam containers on the counters along with sauce packets and chopsticks. It’s a lot of food, as in way more than May has ever ordered on their takeout nights. In fact, Peter’s eyes must widen a little as Tony pulls out box after box because Tony takes one look at the astonishment on his face and says, “I didn’t know what you liked so I just got a bunch of stuff.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Peter says and then clears his throat, stepping forward. He’s been preparing this and running it over and over again in his head like a broken tape recorder and yet, he can’t help the nervousness that runs through his hands and makes his fingers tremble. He wrings out his wrists as he starts out with, “Mr. Stark, you really didn’t have to-” 

“Nope, we’re not doing that,” Tony says and sets the last box down, turns to Peter and sets his hands on his shoulders, squeezing lightly. His gaze is firm yet gentle, his voice soft and low. “No one forces me to do anything. If I didn’t want to come, I wouldn’t have, copy?” 

Peter sniffles and nods. His nose is itchy. His jaw is tense. “Copy,” he whispers. 

Tony nods approvingly, his mouth twitching into a half smile. “Alright. Now how about we eat way too much food and we talk it out, okay? Talking helps or at least that’s what my therapist says.” 

Peter laughs, all breath and unease, but he finds the paper plates buried in the cabinets and serves himself food. Tony rummages around in the fridge and resurfaces with a half drunk two liter of soda. They pour themselves drinks and sit at the kitchen table with the weathering wood grain and chipped paint. 

Tony swirls noodles around with his chopsticks and gently begins with, “So, why don’t you tell me what happened today? At school I’m guessing since Karen didn’t log any patrols today.” 

Peter chews slowly on his orange chicken and then swallows, trying to form the words. The sweeping rush of emptiness is returning like a wind through a field, chaff blowing away, little pieces of himself blowing away and never to return. His head feels heavy and he can feel himself retreating back inside the dark and dreary cave that is himself, his mind, his body. 

_Shape without form, shade without color. Paralyzed-_

“It’s...nothing,” Peter admits quietly, eyes in his lap. “It’s whatever it’s-it’s not the end of the world.” 

“Maybe not,” Tony replies. “But if it’s making you upset, then it’s not whatever. It’s worth being talked about and worked through so it doesn’t get worse.” 

Peter doesn’t say anything to that. His eyes sting with tears, his throat closing up. He hears a chair being scraped back and then the sound of fabric shifting against fabric as Tony crouches down in his periphery. 

“Hey,” Tony says softly, settling a warm hand on Peter’s knee. “Talk to me. What’s going on?” 

Peter sniffles and exhales shakily, breath wet. “I’m hollow,” he whispers with a crooked smile. 

“No,” Tony says. “No, you’re not hollow, you just feel that way.” 

Peter inhales deeply and then chokes on a sob. “I just-I don’t know why,” he cries and covers his mouth with a hand like that could stop it, like that could stop the current of loneliness and sadness and rejection and tiredness from tearing him out into the ocean churning inside his stomach. “I just-there’s-there’s a lot and it’s-it’s so much and-” 

“Oh, Peter,” Tony murmurs and he wraps his arms around Peter who slides off the chair and right into Tony’s embrace, cries into the side of Tony’s shirt while they lay there on the kitchen floor. 

“It’s jus-college is soon and Ned cancelled and I ju-I don’t know why, I’m just so upset and-” he brokenly rambles. 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Tony assures and runs a hand over Peter’s head, carding his fingers through Peter’s curls. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” 

He sniffles and buries his face into Tony’s shirt. “I’m so, so, sorry, Mr. Stark.” 

“No,” Tony replies, his body vibrating with the words. “No, don’t ever apologize for feeling what you need to feel, okay? Just let it all out and we’ll work through it together, okay? I promise.” 

And so, Peter lets himself cry. He lets his body tremble and his chest spasm with sobs as his insides coil and twists themselves into a terrible, aching knot. He lets Tony’s shirt grow damp and lets Tony run his fingers through his hair and massage his back with soothing, circular motions. He just lets it all happen. He lets himself be emptied and lets the steady, thumping rhythm of Tony’s heartbeat fill the space in his head, replacing all his thoughts with only that. That one, grounding sound that breaks the noise and static of everything else. 

He doesn’t know how long they lay there on the kitchen floor, suspended in time, a clock distantly ticking somewhere on the wall. Tony never complains once. And when the shattered breaths falling from Peter’s lips begin to even out and a sense of tranquility slowly trickles in, Tony shifts from underneath Peter and straightens them into a sitting position, Tony’s back against the cabinets. 

“You feel any better?” he asks, eyes genuine and shimmering in the low light. 

Peter nods, heaves a sigh. “Yeah,” he replies and itches his nose, runs a sleeve underneath it. “Yeah, I do.” 

Tony smiles. A little slanted, a little real. “Good.” A pause. Then: “And listen, you don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to but...let’s see what we can sort out tonight and we’ll leave the rest for the morning, okay?” 

Peter nods again. “Okay.” 

And so this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang or a whimper. But with a listening ear and rusted voices and a promise to try again when the sun rises in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> as the kids would say, i am straight up not having a good time
> 
> guys, a girl is just really going through it and i sat down to write this and tbqh, this feels like it's all over the place and just a big mess but a nice looking mess you know? an aesthetically pleasing mess. either way, just writing this out helped me feel better so maybe it'll help one of you guys feel better too. 
> 
> leave a kudos and let me know what you guys think in the comments below and i'll talk to you guys later. bye!
> 
> wattpad: ironarana  
> ko-fi: ironarana


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